Property of a Noblewoman Read Online Free

an elegant handwriting on the back. Some were taken at parties, others on vacation, and there were several on yachts. Jane recognized some as having been taken in Venice, others in Rome. She also noticed pictures of them in Paris, and one of them skiing in the Alps at Cortina d’Ampezzo, a few on horseback, and one of them in a race car with Umberto in helmet and goggles. The older man appeared to be very protective of the beautiful young woman, and she looked happy at his side, and nestled in his arms. She saw several pictures of them taken at a château, and some in elaborate gardens with the château in the background. And there were faded clippings from Roman and Neapolitan newspapers that showed them at parties, and referred to them as Conte e Contessa di San Pignelli. And among the clippings, Jane noticed the count’s obituary from a Neapolitan newspaper in 1965, indicating that he was seventy-nine at the time of his death. It was easy to calculate then that he had been thirty-eight years older than Marguerite, who was only forty-one when he died, and they had been married for twenty-three years.
    It looked as though they had led a luxurious, golden life, and Jane was struck by how elegant they both were, and how stylishly dressed. Marguerite was wearing jewelry in the photos where she wore evening gowns. And in several of them, mostly the ones where she was alone, Jane noticed a deeply sad expression in her eyes, as though something terrible had happened to her. But she always appeared happy in the pictures taken with the older man. They were handsome together and seemed very much in love.
    And at the very end of the file, there were a number of photographs of a little girl, tied with a faded pink ribbon. They had no name written on the back, but only the dates when they were taken, in a different, less sophisticated hand. She was a pretty little girl with a somewhat mischievous expression and laughing eyes. There was a vague resemblance to the countess, but not enough so as to be sure they were related. And Jane was struck with a sudden wave of sadness, looking through the memorabilia of a woman’s life, who was no longer there and must have come to a lonely end, if she had died without a will and no known heirs.
    She wondered what had happened to the little girl, who, judging by the dates on the back of the pictures, would be an old woman now as well. It was all a piece of history from the distant past, and it was unlikely that any of the people in the images were still alive.
    Jane gently closed the folder with the photographs, as Hal handed her the next one, with assorted documents in it. There were several expired passports, which showed that Marguerite was a U.S. citizen, born in New York in 1924, and the stamps in her passport indicated that she had left the States, and entered Portugal, arriving by ship in Lisbon in 1942, at eighteen. Portugal was a neutral country, and the subsequent stamps in her passport showed that she traveled to England the day after she arrived in Portugal. And she had only returned to the States for a few weeks in 1949, seven years later. Further stamps in her passport showed that six weeks after she arrived in England in 1942, she had gone to Rome, with a “special visa.” Jane couldn’t help thinking that the count must have pulled some very high-up strings, or paid someone handsomely, to get his bride into Italy with the war on. There were Italian passports in the folder as well, and the first one was dated December 1942, and showed her name as di San Pignelli, so they were married by then, three months after she’d arrived in Europe, and she had acquired Italian citizenship with the marriage.
    She came back into the States in 1960 on a U.S. passport that had been renewed at the American embassy in Rome. It was her first visit back to the States since her three-week trip in 1949 – and in 1960, she only stayed for days, not weeks. The passport showed no trips to the U.S. after